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Yeah, I think the window of squeezing the swell over the continental shelf and into the long bay is very dismal so the models down size it as opposed to more exposed areas.. Could be wrong, but I cannot tell you how many hurricane swells I have seen over the past 10 years along the strand where it is waist at best and mackin an hour north and south of this area.

Yeah, I think the window of squeezing the swell over the continental shelf and into the long bay is very dismal so the models down size it as opposed to more exposed areas.. Could be wrong, but I cannot tell you how many hurricane swells I have seen over the past 10 years along the strand where it is waist at best and mackin an hour north and south of this area.

ya exactly, i dont have the local experience to know how exactly these long period swells will be influenced by the continental shelf here, so I am interested to see how well the model is really handling this. I will take the surf report data we get from this swell to be able to better calibrate things. So leave some reports if you can!

my experience is that any swell with a 9-10 sec. or longer period loses too much energy and dissapates too much for the grand strand to work. that's why pawleys is only decent with a meduim peiod swell at best.

How can a storm Berthas size that is on the other side of bermuda still send us swell?

Yes. On the east coast we are used to seeing surf from coastal storms, however, any area of winds that are pointed towards us, will create swell energy towards us. The west coast, in the summer time, much of their swell is generated in the south pacific. The small island of Bermuda may block I small amount of swell if the storm is stuck close behind it.

How can a swell that is supposed to be 4-6 ft produce 1-3 ft overhead surf?

We are used to shorter period swells, but when the swell periods increase to 12+ seconds, then, the wave can grow much bigger as it starts the shoaling process towards the coastline. A 5-6ft swell @ 13 seconds can easily create overhead surf.

How can the aforementioned swell that is ese wrap into a south facing beach and still be head high plus?

If a south facing beach is pretty much exposed to anything from due East to due West, so an ESE swell will makit it in just fine. The side note, is that the long period swells that come in at angles refract much more, and will create for a higher amount of variability of how much energy makes it into different beaches.